It seems like a great idea to me, and I can imagine a lot of possibilities for its use. Lots of talk goes on about virtual reality, and industries are even developing it. But has anyone here every tried any one of the different concepts? Years ago, the technology was beginning to show up, and I was interested right away as an enhancement in gaming, but back then, every review I read made it sound more disappointing than satisfying.

One time I bought a gadget that included special glasses and dongles that turned flight simulator into an actual 3D environment where things actually visually appeared in 3D. Not quite virtual reality, but the experience was so unsatisfying, I didn't use it beyond the "trying it out" phase.

How soon do you think it will be before VR headsets are as common as Play Stations? Does anyone have any experience with the current state of the art of VR? How soon do you imagine it will be before someone here takes the leap and incorporates one of the VR gadgets into their personal inventory of technology?

A tremendous improvement. Still, there's a long way to go and VR is currently more of a novelty than anything else. It doesn't quite look realistic yet (or put another way, the virtual environment is obviously fake-looking) so we can't reenact the Matrix or anything. One promising application is to use VR to simulate a storefront in order to showcase products in 3d rather than 2d images, but I don't anticipate that catching on and becoming a mainstream thing for years if not a decade or two.

The problem with the second type of VR, aside from that annoying guy who demonstrated it, is that you can look around, but you can't move around. Everything happens as if your feet were planted in cement. This eliminates the possibility of exploring environments. However, the motion that simulates looking around is quite fluid and seems to coordinate well with head movements. It would work great with flight simulations, because everything you experience on a flight is from the fixed position of your seat. You remain stationary on a plane, while everything moves past you. It would also work well with racing games, I would think.

The problem with the second type of VR, aside from that annoying guy who demonstrated it, is that you can look around, but you can't move around. Everything happens as if your feet were planted in cement. This eliminates the possibility of exploring environments.

Yeah. They designed it that way intentionally because people would otherwise either run into the wall of their house or would have to buy an expensive walking platform. You can buy both the headset and the walking platform, but you'd pay about twice as much as someone buying just the headset.

I watched one of the associated videos, and it seemed to be so disorientating, that people had to have a couple of spotters ready to catch them in a fall at any second.

Physics. You are an inner ear for a reason ... disorienting because your gravity vector isn't changing with your position ... so we need artificial gravity that moves with you, so your inner ear doesn't tell you you are wasting your time.

Physics. You are an inner ear for a reason ... disorienting because your gravity vector isn't changing with your position ... so we need artificial gravity that moves with you, so your inner ear doesn't tell you you are wasting your time.

That would be the ticket for your home theater and Play Station. I've been on those carnival rides that show an ahead view of space travel or a roller coaster, and then simulate the experience of acceleration, turning, and braking by simply tipping the self contained seating compartment forward, backwards, and side to side. It's amazing how real it feels, and it doesn't freak out your inner ears because the visual and kinesthetic sensations are both in sync.

Immersive and believable VR is going to be what AI is to computer science and fusion reactors are to physics: always in the future, no matter what year you're in.

Apostacy to the one true faith of scientism? Also the American Dream ... that with technology, in the future, nobody will have to work for a living? (that actually came from Marx). In the future you can combine AirBnB and Uber ... by living in your can, and sharing with your fellow utopians.